When the Bow Breaks
by chakramrain
Summary: Katie is distraught, hardly glamorous on the streets of Christmas Eve and all are ignorant except for the exception to everything, Effy Stonem. They work something out when the bow breaks.


Some wars are lonesome, though much blood is shed. Some days are nights, though bright the sun still is. Some persons live, though every one of each leaves. Some skies are of breakfast and some skies play with no one beneath them in the fields, watching nothing but the grass and waiting. Sometimes we await an idealised event, sculpted, chiselled and polished in the mind. All the time the physical product beneath whorls on thumbs never matches the imagery, but we find the similarities anyway, forcefully. There's a nibbling from the cold that taunts every layer; it knocks screws into the spine via hammer. And it reminds her of the reason she isn't by a furnace or at least lighting one down her scarred throat. Katie pulls the polka-dots closer, white skin perfectly fine against the blanched colours of every contrasting fabric. She shuffles down a pavement, sunhat of reeds hiding eyes and purpling bruises from the rest of the earth. Katie Fitch does not wear trousers. She does not file about aimlessly in a pair of scruffy sneakers nicked from the charity giveaway. Katie _fucking_ Fitch needs platforms, or six-inch heels. She needs a skirt, laced, and she needs a purse. She needs her hair done up and the fishnet stockings pressed down. Either way Katie is having a bad day, one of the worst, outwardly. Inwardly no one notices much of a difference, aside from how much dignity has been lost. Katie can just see it slithering down the drains, fraternising with the sewage.

Nothing ever is all right with the world. Nothing ever is just fine. Perhaps the fleeting moments can put up debate against that bold claim, but, all in all, the world has been a shipwreck, flotsam dazzling the busy roads and the pathways overgrown with undergrowth. In the necessary explanation the bailiff puts in cursive that Katie Fitch _must_ have been the captain of this supposedly once-existent frigate headed straight for hell. Katie's statement only mentions that she wasn't _challenging_ hell for its right to breathe fire. She was merely attempting to overthrow the government to reign with an unchanged constitution. At this all is right with the world for a bit, because the gears are locking into place. They don't freeze for long, however. The world always needs to move. The people feel the need to and move faster, the idiots turning the speed up a notch on the treadmill.

So all cannot be right with the world, as I, a mere narrator and commentator, have previously mentioned. This is so because no one on the distorted monstrosity of the planet would dare recognise Katie Fitch on the streets on the eve of Christmas, shaking and having epileptic fits, and even if one did, no bumbling airhead would dare on their life acknowledge her.

But Effy Stonem is an exception, as she is to most of the world's rules. She, possibly, tells Mother Nature off during her early visit and sends her into an abyss of purgatory. She has the slim neck of a glass bottle in her hands, the print on the front red and patriotic white, as she gallantly strolls down the area with fingerless gloves worn from times of who-knows-what. Anyhow the cap's come loose, spinning itself off elsewhere to be. Effy takes a swig and a gulp, finally reinforcing her grip on her capture and thrusting it opposite.

"Might fine time you're having, Katie," Effy calls, and when the hooded, barred and bolted stranger makes her best try for an escape she throws her elbow into the mix and lassoes Katie Fitch into waiting arms.

"If you know what's best for you," Katie begins, voice sandpapery and throat hoarse, "get away from me."

However, Effy knows exactly what's best for herself. She knows everything, as is nicely put by everyone who has the pleasure of being in her acquaintance. She also is aware that if she tucks a chin into Katie's bunched shoulder there'll be hackles rising and an eventual shattering of glass, both from the bottle of vodka and Katie crumbling. So she puts her pair of moistened lips to Katie's ear and pulls off the sunhat.

"Why now, Katie?"

"I'm feeling like shit. I don't suppose I could tell you about the anatomy of shit to explain myself, now could I, Stonem? I'm being courteous. Get off me before I too find a rock."

"Ah, the rock jokes," Effy almost snickers in her monotonous manner, tangibly amused.

Both species are being civil.

"Please," Katie says, and Effy can feel her innards turning to dust at the sound of Katie's voice and tone, prepared for the script as if they were acting out a play, but always insufficiently prepared for the emotions Katie invokes.

But Effy is sure enough this time.

"Will you let me take you home?"

Save for the shock tiding itself over Katie's face and then retreating, Katie is enervated from the conversation, "Effy, I don't want to go home. I ran away."

"My house. It's not warm or anything, though. The heater's blasted but you could hole up in a bed with blankets," Effy offers.

Katie falls back at this point in time, the beginning with an unforeseeable end, and Effy tosses out her rickety safety net, ready for the descent. As Katie topples from the peak Effy is there with a rope, a grappling hook and hot cocoa. Very honestly and frankly that is enough for Katie.

"He went, Effy." Katie tells her when they've reached. "Freddie loves you."

Effy does not respond; she only tips more of the steaming drink into Katie's mug.

"I'm not stupid, you know," Katie huffs, watching the surreal puff of unfolding vapour blossom and disappear, "I'm only stubborn. I know proper fine that Freddie never really wanted me."

"That's untrue."

Katie doesn't look up even though the desire to is as sudden and explosive as a lit match. She keeps her head down, legs pushed into herself and shell steady as broken can be.

"Freddie loved you. He loves you now. He left so that he wouldn't push the spear deeper inwards when you've already been impaled."

Effy was never one for fancy expressions and artistic metaphors but she wraps her fingers around the empty air, feeling the handle of the lance, cold and merciless, beneath those fingertips. She shudders at the surge of strength within her and the tensing in the left calf, readying her for the lunge and the resistance from flesh and bone. Her knuckles contract quickly and her fingers splay outwards, hearing a clang zip about in her head as the weapon falls to the floorboards.

"It doesn't matter," Katie finally coughs up some courage, something other than blood and phlegm, "I don't love him."

Effy nods, again bleached, "you loved the idea."

"You always did have to be bloody fucking right about everything, no?"

Anyhow the silence between them is uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable not because of the sparking whirls of dynamite. It's uncomfortable because at a slit in the dress there seems to be a lightning's appearance of hope and comfort. The presence of something other than passionate hatred and agonising envy is unsettling. The dregs rise in the teacup, being stirred by a wooden blade.

"Are you all celebrating?" Katie asks, more out of an out-of-place politeness than anything; Effy has no tolerance for niceties.

"If you mean, 'are you popping a cracker, taking more alcohol and watching reruns while pretending half of you isn't mentally unstable', then yes, Katie, yes, we are."

"I'm sorry."

Effy flicks the concern aside, "don't be. This is as normal as your mother baking too much pie and insisting on singing carols with doves circling the perfect family."

Katie snorts.

"Are you feeling better, then?"

Katie shakes her head, "I'm not too sure what 'better' means under these circumstances but I suppose. I'm not dying of chill and the bruises aren't throbbing from your wicked arm."

There is a bob of the head and Effy pulls open the spread on the bed, willing Katie with a piercing gaze to climb onto the bed. Her eyes, an unfound shade of blue in any ocean, assure Katie that the floor will now give way or wither to hunched shrews if she stands. Even so her hands catch Katie's and both unexpectedly clamber into the bed together.

Effy touches the bandaging and pulls off the layers, placing the mugs on a makeshift table. When she returns Katie's clutching, manicured fingernails pull her inwards and for once Effy does not decline the showing of affection. She might have thrown Cook over the balcony or given Freddie a blistering glower, but she rightly places her arms around the girl and puts now-dry lips to the temple. This is not before she brushes aside the fringe of a darker dye.

"It's nice."

"What?"

"That you've dyed it a darker colour," Effy mutters, unsure of her true intent, "it's better that you aren't doing everything with Emily. It's nice that she isn't your doormat. It's also terribly nice just because it is."

"Oh. Okay, then," Katie whispers, not completely settled on a proper reaction in order to appropriately respond to the insult, stab and compliment.

"Whichever," Effy sighs characteristically, and watches the rustic clock above the doorway hit twelve, "Merry Christmas, Katie."

They hear the fireworks bursting into the night sky, ridding themselves of baggage. Katie puts herself closer to Effy and their eyes catch a certain point midair. Effy lets the bridge of her nose caress Katie's forehead, self maladjusted to affectionate gestures.

"Merry Christmas, Effy," Katie mumbles, "Merry Christmas indeed."


End file.
